Exhilaration
by Palaemona
Summary: Her heart drums within her chest, as the crowd claps for her. The lights nearly blind her, and her feet had been rubbed raw from the strappy heels they insisted she wear. It burns when she breathes, and her head aches with agony. But none of that matters. It's exhilarating.


_Exhilaration_

Her heart drums within her chest, as the crowd claps for her. The lights nearly blind her, and her feet had been rubbed raw from the strappy heels they insisted she wear. It burns when she breathes, and her head aches with agony. But none of that matters.

It's exhilarating.

A never ending burning sensation that starts at her heart, and surges through her veins. Each breath she takes is sharper and more precise, and she feels for once victorious.

Of course, this is the end of her journey. Not the beginning, nor the middle. Because everyone knows that the beginnings are depressing, and the middles are nothing but despair.

Time lapses, burning away softly.

This is her journey.

_(Once Upon a Time)_

She gives into the world of sex and grit when she turns fifteen. She's young, but she's sort of almost pretty. Her hair is blond, and her eyes are blue. She has become what every boy wants, and she accepts this sort of life, because her entire life has stretched out into an abyss of shadows.

They moan her name softly, or the howl it to the heavens. She burrows her way into the back seats of cars, and shadowed corners. She buys box after box of pregnancy tests, silently praying for the _nonono. _

She aborts a mere week before she's seventeen, and all she can hear is a child's cries when night falls.

They haunt her, the cries snagging at her dreams. When she tries to fill the hollowness with maddening sex and all she can hear is the screams. She's a murderer, and killer of life. Guilt claws at her, and she dives far below the grips of sanity.

"You're my lucky Penny," boyfriend number thirty six whispers in her ear, playing with her hair.

She giggles, and his line mashes amongst the rest of the attempts. She takes him by the hand, and pulls him off to his car.

When she looks back at it all, she wonders why she never resisted. Said no. Left. Stopped.

She just never did anything.

She quits a few months before graduation. The world knows she's never going to make it, and she doesn't need a damn scrap of paper to present herself with. She takes off in a rattling car, with everything she needs boxed away in the back.

The music blares, and her windows are down. The engine groans and rattles and the left hand mirror is held in place by duct tape and a fancy job with a hot glue gun. She's unable to get out the scent of cheap cigarette smoke, but she doesn't mind it too much.

She goes everywhere.

She's poor, scraping at money for a little gas. She's traveling the land, seeking out her place in life.

She just doesn't find it.

_(Not right away, at least.)_

She finds a cold and shallow man beneath a mask of indifference.

She thinks she just might have found a kindred spirit.

He has a friend, of course. Guys like that always have some sort of friend, no matter how much they clash and bicker. He reminds her of a puppy, dependent and needing. But he adores her and wants her and needs her, and she feels good.

Sheldon's eyes are cold, boring into her own. She pretends that it doesn't bother her, because she's a damn good liar.

Her dead child silently sobs as she holds Leonard's hands. She allows him into her bed, and tries not to cringe at his desperation. Because she's as hollow as an abyss, with no way out.

He tells he loves her.

She wants to scream and die and bleed, because those words she's wanted to hear for so long don't mean a damn thing.

He leaves, and she withers.

He gives her roses for Valentines. She accepts him, before telling him that she likes daisies. Sheldon quirks an eyebrow, before turning away.

She isn't Sheldon's. Not when she's barely her own.

She hates them all for clinging to her. For clasping hold of her and never letting go. She's Amy's 'bestie' and Leonard's heartless ex-girlfriend. Sheldon's nightmare of a nightmare.

She gets strange glee when she gets the bastard drunk.

His frigid exterior melts away, leaving behind an uncontrollable mess of a man. It reveals the human under the robotic bastard.

He hates her for it, but she just loves him a bit more.

She screams at Leonard, and he rages back. They become unstoppable, and every breath she takes hurts. Her dead babies howl from the shadows, and her body trembles with the memory. Three dead little babies, never a chance.

_(She never gave them a chance, because she never had a chance.)_

Sheldon watches, amused. Raj and Howard take their leave, and Amy and Bernadette turn their heads.

She hates him so much.

He just won't let her go.

They meet at the stroke of midnight. He's drunk and she's in shambles.

They make love.

By three in the morning she's packed up and leaving the parking lot.

She heads up North for a bit, before drifting down West. She throws her cellphone away, and dyes her hair brunette.

She signs up for roles in play and movies, before she finally finds her place on stage. People pay money to watch her on stage, and she deals with the struggles. Everything hurts, but she doesn't mind. She has money now, and a stable home.

It's when she takes her bow though, and the crowd tosses roses at her feet, things change.

A daisy falls at her feet.

Perhaps now, she'll have her happy ending.


End file.
